175 replies to this topic

[Juthro]

I dabbled in making my own cheese before, but it is hard to get fresh milk here.  Most of what makes it in our stores has been shipped from the lower 48, and is ultra pasteurized to extend shelf life, and it does not work to make cheese with.

[rockyfungus]

Sounds so dumb asking…. No local dairy ? Guessing it’s your seasons. 

Edited by rockyfungus, 29 August 2021 - 09:16 AM.

[Juthro]

Sounds so dumb asking…. No local dairy ? Guessing it’s your seasons. 

 

Not dumb, we are kind of unique in a lot of ways up here, and you are correct.  The extreme winters make it expensive, and difficult to care for livestock.   We had one commercial dairy co-op in the entire state (Matanuska Maid), but it has been closed for a long time.  They had a long history here in AK, starting up before WWII, but the privet owners ended up going bankrupt in the 80's, and the state took it over.   They closed it down in the early 2000's IIRC.

 

So now I would have to find a private farmer, and to get around the law, you have to buy a share of cow to receive any of the milk, but not too many people with dairy cows around here.  We had one guy close by, but he hasn't had the cleanest operation, and has made people sick a couple of times.  I think the state may have finely shut him down completely, I haven't seen him around at the farmers markets in the last year or so.

 

We generally end up with Dairgold milk, that comes up from Oregon.

[rockyfungus]

Hmm I smell money. I need a boat, or pond-jumper and a dairy farmer in Canada somewhere. 

[Juthro]

Hmm I smell money. I need a boat, or pond-jumper and a dairy farmer in Canada somewhere. 

 

It's Alaska, there is always opportunity here, both to succeed, or fail.  We are a land of dreams.    Boom or bust, you always get a hell of ride around these parts :)  I agree there is a untapped market here, and the local people here are very loyal to local brands.  We like to keep our money in state if we can, and are often willing to pay even slightly more to do so.

 

The biggest hurdle I see for a dairy here would be the fact that without Matanuska Maid, there is no federally inspected milk processing plant, or co-op in state to sell your milk to.  Without that inspection stamp the FDA, and the DEC wont let you sell commercially.

[rockyfungus]

Love it, way more safety built in then expected. I really need to start learning to can and pickle some things.

Not a preparer, but starting to feel a slight need to learn some lost arts.

Been trying to convince some older guys to teach me fly fishing and some other guys duck hunting. Been a minute since I hunted and was only deer.

Fly fishing boggles my mind as I grew up fishing canals.

Rambling, tripping, want to get off the grid still

[rockyfungus]

Revived my backup sourdough. Started some biga dough to make pizza and pitas. Let me know if you want the recipe easy stuff. 

[Juthro]

I love sourdough, and would like to hear how you run yours :)

[rockyfungus]

My sourdough is usually mixed by feel and ends up close to classic 100% hydration. Bubbling after 1 day! 25g H2O 25g bread flour + 25g dried starter. I think it was closer to 30g H2O by feel.
I'll double up the starter and start playing with whole wheat, rye, etc. 
Mostly just bread flour and all purpose on hand these days. Mycology took over
 

 

The pizza/pita is a recipe from 5-6 years ago I haven't touched as I'm pure SD and no yeast for most baked goods. My gut prefers the pre-fermentation/digestion.

 

STAGE 1

165g lukewarm water

0.2g yeast (should of gone less because too warm)

250g bread flour.

Once that rises and gets nice and bubbly/fermented you go to second stage. 

Waiting on full ferment may need to throw in fridge to retard while at work. 

STAGE 2

185g H2O

13g salt

250g flour (cake or pizza)

415g of the bigga (stage 1)

Going 48-72 hrs ferment on final stage

If you need directions, good luck, I bullshit it everytime :)

Edited by rockyfungus, 06 September 2021 - 09:16 AM.

[rockyfungus]

Retarded in fridge for 6.5 hours. "Table rest" in bowl for 1.5 hours.  I just popped the lid to mix stage 2. If you know that smell. (booze is nice and all but bread!)

 

Threw flour on top of "starter/levian/bigga/poolish" salt, water, and hand mixed for maybe 70 seconds. It'll sit for 45ish minutes then formed into a big ball. If it's resisting it's fate it'll rest more. Once pilable shape into 1/2 pitas and 1/2 pizza. Same shit just don't push the air out :)

Ferment maybe 36-48 hours and bake at MAGMA if you got it. 

Edited by rockyfungus, 06 September 2021 - 08:10 PM.

[rockyfungus]

Not good. My sourdough culture has black mold. Literally all my projects are molding out this summer. Time to toss that culture and make a brand new one from scratch. 

[Juthro]

sorry 'bout your luck Rocky.... :(

[rockyfungus]

Got lazy and ended up throwing balls in bread pans. Really boozy as I let it overferment.

 

 

 

[Severian]

Rawwwwwwwwwwww milkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

 

 

Finally able to make the trip to buy some today, bodies been yelling at me for weeks.

[FLASHINGROOSTER]

Damn that dollar store.... Does an entire bag of Twizzlers count as a meal?

 

Time to get back on track this week, I should throw out the rest of that frigging binge bag. The self control has flown the coop this week. Trying to eat well is a slippery carb slope that often leads me to a bag of shame. So easy to pack on an extra 1000 calories in a day with that sugar business.

[ElPirana]

<p>

I ain’t talking carbs, fats, “protein”. I’m taking amino acids as our engine of choice pointed out.I’m talking about lack of animal protein. He needs to get varying sources to be COMPLETE.Edit: Also average person should be eating hopefully everything in moderation which is key. Hard to miss out on complete proteins, but I know vegans that stick to soy and your missing some vital stuff there.

Good stuff to bring up Rocky. I admit I haven't thought a lot about amino acids, I'm sure I read up on it a couple years ago but can't remember much. So I just did a very quick search and found this on MedicineNet, 10 Foods High in Essential Amino Acids:

Your body cannot make essential amino acids from scratch or from other amino acids, so you must get them from food. These (essential amino acids) include:

• Histidine
• Lysine
• Isoleucine
• Leucine
• Tryptophan
• Valine
• Threonine
• Methionine
• Phenylalanine

Animal and plant foods that contain complete proteins or all amino acids include:

• Red meat
• Chicken
• Fish
• Seafood
• Eggs
• Milk
• Cheese
• Yogurt
• Quinoa
• Chia seeds
• Tofu

Plant foods that contain some amino acids include:

• Grains
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Beans
• Legumes
• Fruits
• Vegetables

I guess I lucked out on some of this, probably also helpful that I'm not vegan so I do get some dairy. I also eat quinoa at least five days a week, often more. My wife's from Peru, so she got me eating quinoa quite a number of years ago. Nowadays, we make quinoa instead of rice. We also put it in a salad that we make every week, which is made from carrots, cucumber, red onion, quinoa, fresh lemon juice, olive oil and some salt & pepper. It's very good, I actually just made some a few minutes ago. edit: we also eat avocados almost every day, which evidently have a lot of beneficial fatty acids and all the essential amino acids.

Speaking of essential amino acids, I just noticed that my vegan protein powder includes 18 amino acids, including all 9 essential amino acids. Two servings provides the full daily requirements.

Changing subject a bit, I found a good sugar alternative. Monkfruit and erythritol, often labeled simply as monkfruit sweetener. I noticed this was used in the 85% dark chocolate that I bought a while back and looked it up. Seems a lot of people I know already have heard of it and tried it, I don’t know what cave I’ve been living in to miss it lol. I bought some, worked well with my chai tea.

Edited by ElPirana, 05 April 2022 - 12:47 PM.